Today's Opinions

I work hard at developing wrinkles and gray hair.
It’s a by-product of my favorite hobby — worrying.
With a tumultuous year coming to a close and (if we can rely on the accuracy of the Mayan calendar) perhaps the world as we know it in 2012, there’s a lot to bite our nails over.
Should the world end in either fire or ice in 2012, I can at least check off a few 2011 happenings here at home and around the world from my worrywart agenda.

Wish in one hand, spit in the other because in the end it generally amounts to the same thing.
I shall nevertheless toss out some some wishes for the new year, minus all the “whirled peas” pablum that generally makes these kind of columns remarkably boring.
Instead, I’ll focus on things that could actually happen here.

Well, this sure has been some weird weather.
The library’s alliums are sprouting like it’s spring. I’m just thankful that all this precipitation has been in the form of rain and not snow.
I guess that’s a good way to end the fall.
Winter officially arrives tomorrow with the longest night. From then on, the sun will rise earlier each day and we’ll begin the slow roll back to spring.
We’ll just get a little flakey between now and then.

To the editor:
Are you as confused as I am as to whose side God is on in the political arena?
The rejoinder materializing from my query has left me befuddled, bewildered, discombobulated, and … well, you know, confused.
The founding fathers established a separation of church and state to ensure religious freedom in our country through the First Amendment. Even so religion and politics has always been a capricious amalgam at the dinner table as well as on the local and national scenes.

To the editor:
I would like to thank everyone for their support in our annual Shop With A Cop program.
The continued success of this program is because we live in a very giving and supportive community. Each year the program continues to grow thanks to your help.
A big thanks to all of our emergency service personnel that volunteered their time to shop with a child this year. Of course, without the businesses and individuals who donated and helped us raise the money needed, none of this would be possible.

Editor’s note: The following was written by Francis P. Church and was first published in The New York Sun in 1897. Church married shortly after the editorial appeared. He died in April 1906, leaving no children. Virginia O’Hanlon went on to graduate from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21. Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.

Someday, I’m going to be famous.
Probably not for my own merits or intellect.
Lord knows that those things would get me nowhere.
I’ll be famous for as long as it takes to watch a video, repeat a headline or blink an eye.
After all, that’s as long as most important issues remain in the American consciousness.